“Then I hope your thoughts were the same as mine.”
He pulled her into his arms. It felt so good that she was sorely tempted to put off telling him once again. Her conscience got the better of her.
“William, I have something to tell you.”
His light mood was gone in an instant.
“All right,” he said, releasing her and stepping back.
She took his hand and led him to the window seat. Sensing his tension, she feared their new bond was too fragile for this revelation. She took a moment to get her courage up.
“Come, Catherine, it cannot be as bad as that,” he said, and patted her hand. “Tell me what worries you.”
The anxiety in his dark honey eyes belied his soft tone. Keeping him waiting would only cause him to think of darker and darker possibilities.
“You know Rayburn hurt me.” She fixed her eyes on William’s hand over hers as she began her tale; it still was not easy for her to talk about how Rayburn mistreated her. “He wanted an heir, but he had difficulty… performing the task.” She cleared her throat. “Sometimes he did manage it, but I did not conceive. He was becoming more and more violent.
“I was young and very frightened.” She gave William a furtive glance, hoping he understood how dire her situation was. “I thought it would not be long before he killed me.”
She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “There was a young man,” she said, barely above a whisper. “He saved me.”
“Saved you?” William said, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. “Just how did he save you?”
“He took care of me when I was injured.”
She closed her eyes and remembered that day, more than four years ago. Prince Harry had stopped overnight. Rayburn was leaving with him the next day to fight the rebels. Since Rayburn might be gone for weeks, he came to her that night for another attempt. He hurt her badly that time.
The next morning, she waited to go down to the hall until Rayburn and the other men were gone. She forgot about the young knight Harry left behind to carry a message to the king. The moment she entered the hall, the young man rushed to her side. When she refused to let him call anyone to help her, he carried her upstairs and took care of her injuries himself.
“He was very kind and courteous,” she said aloud.
She remembered how the young man’s face and even his ears turned red when he eased the hem of her gown up to wrap the linen strips around her injured ankle. His fingers were unexpectedly gentle.
“He wrapped my ankle for me,” she murmured. “He told me he learned his skills from the monks at a monastery near his home. He said he once hoped to join their order.”
William made an indecipherable sound. Still, she did not look at him.
“When he helped me to my bed, my sleeve fell back. He saw the bruises on my arm.”
After his careful treatment, she was startled when he held her wrist and pushed her sleeve up to her shoulder. She remembered how the dark purple and blue of the new bruises stood out against the fading yellow ones. The young man’s eyes were full of compassion when he looked into her face again.
“He saw that my injuries were not from a fall, as I had told him—and that this was not the first time,” she said. “He pressed me to tell him who was hurting me and why.”
It was the memory of the young knight who took her riding before her wedding that led her to trust in the kindness in this young man’s eyes. And that was what saved her.
“I told him everything. That there was no hope for me. That my husband could not get me with child and that he would not stop hurting me until I conceived.”
The young man put his arms around her and made shushing noises into her hair. She remembered leaning into the comfort of his embrace and weeping until she fell into an exhausted sleep. By the time she awoke, he had worked out a solution to her problem.
“He said that to save my life, I must let another man get me with child.” Her voice was so low that William leaned forward to hear her. “He said letting Rayburn murder me would be a greater sin than adultery.”
Catherine let the silence stretch. Nothing could have made her look at William now. She could feel him next to her, fairly vibrating with violent emotion.
Finally, she made herself say it: “I asked him to do that favor for me.”
“You what!”
“He refused at first,” she said. William was gripping her hand so hard now that it hurt. “He was offended that I might think he carried me upstairs with the intent of seducing me.”
